SHAPE OF SOAP

17 May 2018

Let’s reconsider the humble soap bar: many designers are expanding their ranges from furniture and lights and thinking about this simple yet useful everyday item. Today we’re seeing soap in simple geometric forms inspired by fanciful buildings, a doughnut shaped ring of soap comes with an aluminum peg for hanging it on the wall. There are multicolored pyramidal and disk-shaped as well as vibrantly striped bars. One of the most original designs is by Jasper Morrison, the British designer with a penchant for everyday objects (he once organized an exhibition of tape rolls). His soap is a slab with scored lines that allow it to be snapped into four individual bars. “Why not remove the preciousness of the individual wrapping,” Mr. Morrison asks, “and sell it like the consumable product it is?”